Kicking and Screaming is, by all accounts, a terrible film. But it's a passable experience because of Will Farrell's uncanny ability to make the unfunniest things funny.

The story is a generic one. Phil (Will Farrell) has an unbelievably childish competitive drive with his father Buck (Robert Duvall in an embarrassing role). Buck is better at everything – including tetherball – and Phil is getting increasingly upset about it.

The primary conflict kicks off as the two men become coaches of competing kids’ soccer teams. Phil gets the underdog team, but he manages to make things happen, and inevitably the two coaches eventually face off. The whole time, Phil is becoming manically obsessed about winning, to the point that he benches his own son and fires his assistant coach Mike Ditka (Mike Ditka in an embarrassing performance).

Of course, before the curtain cues, Phil does an instant 180 and realizes what a jerk he has become so we can walk away feeling happy. But we have little reason to believe why Phil was acting so psychotic and even less reason to be convinced why he has suddenly changed. It’s a moral message, sure. But one of those of the worst kind: it’s there out of obligation.

In the meantime, we can watch Will Farrell act psychotic – which is the only reason to watch Kicking and Screaming anyway. Even though Farrell is given nary a funny line of dialogue, he somehow always manages to make it work. That Farrell is at his funniest with what he is given here says something about his comic talent. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who could have taken Farrell’s lines and made them as funny as he has here. It’s amazing. If Farrell can just find better films to put himself into, he could be legend.

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